If you using the default apache httpd.conf i.e. your files are in /var/www/html then you need to change the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file like so, and service httpd restart change;

<Directory "/var/www/html">
...
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
# Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
AllowOverride None

to this;

<Directory "/var/www/html">
...
# AllowOverride controls what directives may be placed in .htaccess files.
# It can be "All", "None", or any combination of the keywords:
# Options FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#
AllowOverride All <------change this

As a further security suggestion. I would generally recommend restricting access to the phpMyAdmin installation folder during production and development usage, simply because phpMyAdmin is easy to leave open, and is popular with bots for automated exploitation by brute force etc. You can just allow your own IP (if you have a known static IP like so;)